Arden Ranger, thank you for jogging my memory!
Milquetoast.
Bluestocking
Lollygagging
gallivant
Well I swan!
This phrase was used by my father in mixed company. If we were alone,he would say what he really meant by that,which was,“Well I’ll be goddamned!”
I’ll have to search around and find out what it really meant and where it came from.
There are several variations on that one. From the Info Please dictionary:
I always heard this one as “I swunnee,” pronounced sorta like the river. I always took it to be a euphemism for “I swear.”
I had an uncle who unaffectedly used any number of archaic expressions such as “by ginger!” (probably a variant of “by Geoorge”), “Crikey!” and a whole raft of others.
If you were in his house and closed your eyes and just listened, you might think you were transported to the earky 1900’s.
Speaking of that, some of you might enjoy a novel called The Alienist.
It involves, uh…time travel…to turn of the century NYC and the search for a serial killer. What I liked is how the author presented the people of this time.
It is by no one’s standard an all-time mystery story, but I found it to be a good read. See a down to earth review at…
http://www.forbisthemighty.com/pages/alienist.htm
…where you’ll also learn the definition of “Alienist” - if you don’t know already.
Earl:
Yeah,I just found it at THEWORDMAVEN.COM site, and it does indeed mean “I swear”.
It says that (this means you) in the south it’s said “I swanny,” and in the north (I was brought up on a farm in Ohio) it’s said “I swan”.
One of my grandmothers always referred to my blue jeans as dungarees, which amused me. (This was in the '70s and first half of the '80s, so well archaic by then, I’d say.)
I never think my word usage is particularly weird, but a friend of mine gets a bad case of the giggles almost every time we talk. She claims that NO ONE says “dreadful” or “cross” (meaning mildly angry) anymore, and that I am hopelessly out-of-date.
Banter is a wonderful word. People tend to know what it means but it’s so old-fashioned they still do a slightly non-plussed double-take when I come out with it.
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So what did you do when you met up with them?
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Oh, not much, had a drink, indulged in the usual banter.
Does the word ‘swell’ count? Bear in mind that i’m British so this always makes me look like some strange extra from ‘Happy days’ or something. I find it is particularly effective when couple with an expletive!
woo
Poltroon. As in “A pox upon thee for a niggardly poltroon.”
A few years before that, I had a friend whose mother used that term. And she wasn’t that old; but they had originally come from Virginia, so maybe it’s a regional thing.
Ought.
The other day, in the office, I actually used the phrase “Ought I to do so?” Got some very blank stares.
Reading all these wonderful words made me forget the one that I was going to post! Damnit! OH- foodstuffs. It’s a great word. I also like hooligan, that’s not used very often in the US. I found it really funny that Interpol has devoted part of its website to football hooliganism.
My drawing teacher is really fond of telling us our drawings are cattywampus if the proportions are off. It’s kinda hard to keep a straight face when he says that.
“Ought” is old-fashioned? Color me surprised.
Of course, I use it as in, “I remember last year, back in aught-three . . .”
Personally, I like any english words that has it’s origins in Yiddish.
Oh, and Defenestrate. Defenestrate is a great word. I tought it to a class of ESL students, for fun 
I think it might have been your unusual phrasing (to most people’s ears, anyway) that drew the blank looks. Although I guess you’re right that “should” is preferred over “ought” these days.